Jean-Marc Huet, the company's chief financial officer, said: "Our business is very large in scale and reach, with operations in over a hundred countries. "The challenge that this poses for our auditors has been successfully met by PricewaterhouseCoopers over many years and we have always been impressed with the rigour and quality of their audit. "However, given changes in the regulatory environment and market expectations, it makes sense for Unilever to rotate its auditors at this time." [Sky News]
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PwC Doubling Headcount in China
All the other Big 4 firms have gotten some digital ink hyping their hiring plans for the next fiscal year and beyond. Before today, PwC had only mustered some rumored poaching which isn’t ideal PR.
The rest of the firms have already made it known that they are doing their part to create jobs here and abroad – Deloitte’s numbers are dumbfounding, KPMG’s spree includes Europe and asking its alumni come crawling back, while E&Y is picking up 6,000 recruits off campus.
P. Dubs finally gets puts some hiring news out there announcing that they will double their headcount in China over the next 5 years to over 20,000 employees.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP plans to double its headcount in China to more than 20,000 people within the next five years to meet rising demand for professional services as the nation’s companies become more international.
“We expect more Chinese companies to expand their presence overseas, and we’d like to be part of that growth,” Silas Yang, the firm’s chairman for China and Hong Kong, said today in a statement.
PwC to Double China Headcount to More Than 20,000 Over 5 Years [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]
Already Underpaid PwC UKers Get Told Bonuses Will Suck This Year
Although Big 4 audit fees have increased so much in the last several years clients […]
PwC Accepts Responsibility for Losing Personal Records of Alaska Public Employees
In Alaska news that doesn’t involve Sarah Palin, it emerged late last week that PwC lost the personal records of 77,000 public employees and retirees who participated in the State’s Public Employees Retirement System and the Teachers Retirement System in 2003 – 2004.
Alaska had engaged P. Dubs as expert witnesses in a lawsuit against its former actuary Mercer and turned the data over to the firm for analysis during the discovery process. PwC discovered that the data vanished in December and PwC notified the state last week (nobody wants to share bad news during the holidays).
PwC has accepted responsibility for the whole mess and has agreed to pay for identity theft protection, credit monitoring, and security freezes (if necessary) for the 77,000 employees affected. The firm will also reimburse any losses suffered by any of the participants.
The firm must have realized that there was little upside to disclaiming responsibility, as this would inevitably lead to a sentence in a Sarah Palin speech that involved PwC opposing God, guns, and regular Americans. Populist rancor would ensue and the firm would be run out of Alaska within a week (give or take).
This is the second SNAFU for PwC in the last month. The firm issued a press release on January 15th announcing that someone was sending bogus PwC checks to random people advising them that they had been selected to be secret shoppers. It’s not clear as to whether this is a sign of the wheels coming off or simply bad luck. We’ll keep you informed of any additional slip-ups.
State Acts Promptly to Safeguard Alaskans Against Potential Identity Theft [State of Alaska Department of Law]